Sacred to Cook's immortal name.. by STOTHARD, Thomas (engraved by T. COOK) - 1788

London, 1788. Engraved view with poem, 195 x 105 mm., laid down on card. Rare Cook engraving, with commemorative poem, after a drawing by Thomas Stothard (1755-1834). Stothard was elected to the Royal Academy in 1794 and often collaborated with William Blake, although the present engraving is by T. Cook. Coxhead, who wrote the standard monograph on Stothard, gives a tentative date of 1788 and describes the piece as a 'frontispiece of allegorical character, showing a bust of Captain Cook, round which are three naked cupids, and a figure, holding a scroll, pointing to a temple of fame' (A.C. Coxhead, Thomas Stothard, R.A., p. 168). Beddie knew three copies of the print, all in the Dixson collection of the State Library of New South Wales, and she gave the image the nominal title 'Philosophy inviting Youth to the heights of science: allegorical representation with bust of Cook.' A copy of the image is also known in the Nan Kivell collection at the National Library of Australia.